His flight had caused a great sensation there. The Signory on September 30th decreed that all those who had deserted should be declared rebel and banished if they did not return by October 7th. On the date fixed Michelangelo had not returned. A decree declared the fugitives rebels and their goods confiscated, but the name of Michelangelo did not[{70}] figure on the list. They gave him another chance. A few days later the Florentine envoy at Ferrara, Galeotto Guigni, informed the Signory that Michelangelo had heard of the decree too late and that he was ready to return if he would be pardoned. The Signory promised to forgive him and had a safe conduct sent to him in Venice by the stone-cutter, Bastiano di Francesco, who brought him at the same time letters from ten of his friends all beseeching him to return to Florence. He had had time to reflect on what he had done and was ashamed of his pitiful panic. He went back to Florence on November 20, 1529, and on the 23rd the decree of banishment was removed by the Signory, but the Grand Council was closed to him for three years. According to a letter of Sebastiano del Piombo, Michelangelo also had to pay to the city a fine of fifteen hundred ducats.
DECORATIVE FIGURE
Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (1508-1512).
From that time on he did his duty bravely. He took his place again at San Miniato, which the enemy had been bombarding for a month. He had the hill fortified all over again, and it is said that he saved the campanile by covering it with bales of wool and mattresses hung on cords. The last record of his activity during the siege is a note of February 22, 1530, which shows him climbing the dome of the cathedral, doubtless to watch the[{71}] movements of the enemy or to examine into the condition of the dome itself, strained by the bombardment.
The misfortune which he had foreseen took place on August 2, 1530, when Malatesta Baglioni turned traitor. On the 12th Florence capitulated, and the Emperor turned the town over to the representative of the pope, Baccio Valori. Then the executions began. During the first few days nothing checked the vengeance of the conquerors and some of Michelangelo's best friends were among the victims. Michelangelo hid himself, it is said, in the tower of S. Niccolò oltr'Arno. He had especial reason to fear because the report had been spread that he had wished to tear down the palace of the Medici. "When the wrath of Clement VII had subsided," says Condivi, "he wrote to Florence that Michelangelo should be searched for. He added that if he was found and was willing to go on working at the tombs of the Medici he should be treated with all the consideration he deserved," Michelangelo came out of his hiding-place and in September or October, 1530, again undertook his work for the glory of those against whom he had fought.
It was not the glory of the Medici he wrought, but his own sorrow and wrath. The same thing[{72}] happened here as with the tomb of Julius II. Michelangelo did not have the force to refuse a task unworthy of him: his genius was heroic, his will not so at all. He accepted the order, he even outlined a program whose sychophantic affectation arouses a feeling of sadness and of pity for the humiliation of so great a man, forced to lie. A note in his own hand at the Casa Buonarroti explains one of the monuments in the following way.
"Day and Night talk together and say: In our rapid flight we have brought Duke Giuliano to death. It is therefore just that he should avenge himself. His vengeance, now that we have killed him, is to snatch away the light from us; by closing his eyes, he has closed ours, which will no longer illumine the earth. What would he have done with us if he had remained alive?"
Is not that insipid interpretation the veil of prudence which he wrapped about his rebel spirit? How much of this is really left in the work? Who can find it there? Who thinks only of the Medici before this tragic expression of a lonely and despairing soul? The burning and mighty spirit of the Sistine breathes again, and austere forms rise from the shade. Yet here everything is sadder; a funereal silence reigns. It is no longer the tragic[{73}] struggle of the Son of Man. It is the void which weighs on these giants who groan and complain and on those two sombre, pondering heroes. The superb imperfection of some of these colossal figures, from which the sculptor has only torn aside with his chisel part of the veil of marble that covers them, adds still more to the impression of mysterious terror expressed by these classic divinities, half released from chaos and soon to exhaust themselves in a vain struggle against the forces of destruction. Action, resigned and powerless, turns his head aside. At his feet Day in fierce contempt for all things, shows for a moment over his shoulder, his face wrapped in clouds. He turns his back on life and plunges into passionate isolation. Night, overcome by leaden sleep and burning with fever, sinks into the midst of a stifling nightmare, like a stone into a gulf.
Thought, self-divining, bends toward the tomb his austere face bathed in shadow and considers the succession of his days. Dawn, so beautiful and pure, wakened against her will, weary of living and exhausted, stirs in mortal pain; Twilight, with bended brow, bitter and disabused, remembers the past without regret. The dolorous and resigned Virgin looks on at this threnody of[{74}] negation while the child God, famished, gnaws her breast in anger.[47]
It was in this outburst of despair that Michelangelo drowned his shame at raising this monument of slavery.[48] He fell ill from over-excitement and Clement VII attempted in vain to soothe him. He sent affectionate messages to him by his secretary, Pier Paolo Marzo, urging him not to overexert himself,[{75}] to work reasonably and at his leisure, to take a walk occasionally, and "not to reduce himself to the condition of a drudge." In the autumn of 1534 his life was in danger. Giovanni Battista di Paolo Mini wrote on September 29th to Valori, "Michelangelo is worn and emaciated. I have spoken of it to Bugiardino and Antonio Mini; we agreed that he had not long to live unless someone looks out for him."